The Land's Whisper (42 page)

“What’re we doing here?” Brenol asked.

Ordah scowled. “Finding Jerem.”

“I mean, what’s really going on? He isn’t
here…but you believe he is.” Brenol frowned in incomprehension.
“You didn’t want to come, but now that we are here, you are pawing
around like you’re sure he is hiding somewhere.”

A flicker of surprise played across Ordah’s
features. He rubbed his square jaw with dirty fingers while
observing the boy.

Brenol thought about the nurest desires that
continually clawed at him and suddenly he saw Ordah differently;
while Brenol fled from his darkness, it appeared like Ordah settled
into his. Suddenly, the pazor-bull eyes seemed pithless and
weak.

The youth narrowed his gaze and spoke
sharply, “She’s a real girl. And you’re playing games with her
life. I may be just a boy. And I may be corrupt like everyone
thinks and says. But you’re choosing what I’m at least trying to
run from.”

Spewing the words out was like smashing a
dam; he had not been entirely aware of his deep resentment toward
Ordah, but now it poured out with unrelenting force. Brenol felt
his lips curl back in disgust, and he boiled with loathing.

The prophet scowled and he clamped his jaw
until his teeth ground together.

“Or are your maralane more important to
you?” Brenol shouted. “More important than your own world?” The boy
kicked the dirt beneath his feet in sullen ire and pointed a sharp
finger at the prophet. “I believe you saw Jerem. You saw and
ignored his evil.”

He spun on his heels to leave; he was weary
of company.

“Wait!”

Brenol barely arced his neck to take in the
prophet, but upon seeing the haunted features, his own lips parted
in surprise, and he turned to face the man fully. Ordah was white
as milk and far from the stalwart figure who had stood before him
minutes ago. It was as if he had shrunken.

If I were a wolf, I could smell his
fear,
Brenol thought in awe.

“I’m trying. I want to. I
must.
Help
me. By the Three, help me save her.”

~

Colette stirred. The dream world was so
thick upon her. Its wisps clung like unyielding gossamer, and her
eyelids refused to budge. They were so heavy, so heavy…

She longed for something. But what? Her
throat ached in dryness until through the haze she recalled its
name.

Water.

She wanted water. Her mouth stung and her
lips burned, for naming the need had only intensified her thirst.
She could think of little else.

A strange sound echoed around her, and with
horror, she suddenly recognized it as her own moaning.
Has this
happened before?
The sound did not stop, and her own terror
grew, for she knew—
how can I?—
that noise beckoned
danger.

Her limbs were leaden and unresponsive
beneath her, yet her chest managed to convulse in sobs. There was
no control, just her body reacting as it pleased. She wished she
could at least drink of her own tears.

A light came, and her body stiffened
involuntarily. Even her sobs ceased.
Why?

Colette wished, she longed, she ached—but
for what? A spark of a picture flitted across her mind like a
butterfly wing.
A man? A person?
The memory refused to
flicker its ray of hope again, and she was left to the whims of her
deadened frame.

Gentle hands elevated her head and propped
her neck aright. She remained unable to raise her eyelids, but at
least the soft groaning had ceased. The hands parted her lips and
delicious liquid cascaded down upon parched tongue and throat. She
gasped for air but the water coursed down mercilessly and her
muscles obeyed under the rush with choking gulps. Soon, she felt a
strange indifference, wondering if it would ever cease, and began
to drift away. Eventually the flow stopped, and her lungs sucked in
air gratefully.

Next, food was spooned down. It was thick
and mushy and foul. She groaned, but the hands did not relent. She
wondered if she would ever wake, for this could only be a terrible
dream.

Water again filled her throat and her weak
muscles complied in sputtered swallows. The hands wiped her face
clean, and it was then her heart thundered awake in fright.

Something about that smell…

Colette’s head was lowered, and she felt the
dream world again begin to wrap its fingers around her, but a
stubbornness in her pushed back.

Something. I must do something?

Another wisp of a memory came to her, but
this with vivid clarity: her mother, extending her hands out in
welcome and wrapping her arms around her snugly. The picture
comforted her. Yes, her mother. Her mother was so lovely.

The hands. Colette felt them again. They
were warm and wandering, and it was then Colette realized her skin
was bare beneath them. They caressed her, petted her, traveling
from her chest down her body like snakes. Her insides roared in
revulsion and she longed to scream, yet no sounds escaped, nor
could any movement be mustered. Hot breath raggedly swept upon her
neck and a fighting desperation filled her. She wished she had
allowed the dreams to take her earlier, for now the nightmare
ravaged her entire, and his scent was thick and his body
searing.

Three, save me.

~

“What do you mean, they
knew
?”
Brenol’s surprise had drained all fury, leaving him bereft of the
courage that had coursed through his veins but minutes previously.
A clattering of stones behind him signified Darse’s presence, but
Brenol did not turn his eyes away from the shrunken prophet.

“What’s going on?” Darse asked cautiously.
He peered at each in turn and was puzzled by the expressions that
resided in the two faces.

“He is here,” Ordah said. His voice rumbled
but was as hushed as a whisper. The steely eyes were lowered in
shame.

“I know you
think
that. You’re
running around this island like a maniac. But what do you
mean?”

“Jerem is here.”

Darse furrowed his brow. “Enough riddles.
Just speak.”

Ordah inhaled with effort and tumbled out
his story. “Jerem is here. I don’t know where, but he’s here. He
came with one other, possibly two, in the same craft we did.
Obviously at a much earlier time.”

“How do you know?”

The prophet licked his lips nervously. “The
maralane told me.”

“Why would the maralane help him?” Brenol
asked.

“Stop your assumptions,” Ordah replied. A
lethal undercurrent swam beneath his words, raising the hair on the
boy’s arms.

“So they came here…” Brenol led
cautiously.

“But I don’t know where they are. There’s no
way one, let alone two or three, could escape notice. We’ve shifted
searching patterns, we’ve covered every hand span of earth. But
he’s not here.” The prophet raised his hand to his forehead in
exasperation.

“It would seem it’s time for you to tell us
all you know,” Darse said firmly.

Ordah all but snarled. Any element of
contrition washed away as the stony eyes hardened.

Darse broadened his shoulders and
straightened his back. His legs parted into a sturdy brace,
creating a fortress of flesh. Brenol knew the glint in those golden
eyes. He also recalled the biting scrapes and bruises that he
licked every night after Ordah’s lessons. Swiftly, he rushed
between the two and held out both hands in a conciliatory
motion.

“Ok. Easy.” He met Ordah’s steely eyes, and,
despite feeling every lacking orbit in his body, held the gaze. “So
we don’t need to know your secret—or whatever it is that you’re
thinking. But we’re still missing things we
do
need to know.
Let us start there?”

Ordah parted his lips to bare his teeth in a
furious grimace, but Brenol accepted it as agreement. Darse did not
move, watching with narrowed eyes.

The boy closed his eyes for a moment. There
was something tickling at the back of his mind, but it was too
vague to grasp. Eventually, he sighed. “He’s here. And we know he
didn’t leave?”

Ordah gave a single nod of the head.

“How long ago was that?”

“Moons.”

Brenol felt his brow furrowing in judgment.
He really has been toying with her life.

Ordah must have read as much in the
expression, for he snarled. “I never knew Jerem was out here.
Never. Not until Arman suggested as much and I spoke to the
maralane.”

Brenol again held up his hands as though to
calm a rearing stallion. “Ok, ok. Tonight we rest and think. We’re
merely missing something.”

Ordah, then Darse, gave their begrudging
consent and dispersed to their own musings and personal space.
Brenol shook his head in wonder; one moment he felt so young he
could barely cope; the next, he was mature and directing his
elders. It was straining and left him feeling the world was
a-tilt.

The night eventually approached, and Darse
ambled up with soft steps and somber expression. He granted the boy
a small dip of the head and curled into his blankets in weariness.
Brenol respected the imposed silence.

Their camp was but a small section between
three rising sheets of rock, open to the whims of the weather, yet
it afforded them protection from wind and eyes. Tonight Brenol was
glad to be away from both, for the evening air had already dipped
to a shuddering chill. He hugged his arms to his body and seemed to
hear the wind whispering words of horror.

It’s nothing,
he insisted, but the
wind’s voice nevertheless worried into him like a worm into rich
fruit. He shivered and collected the blankets around him, wishing
as he did every night that they could have a fire.

The breeze tore over the waters and howled
around the rocky shelter.
Jerem is close,
it said.
So
close.

There is a portal here,
the wind
tickled in his ear.
A portal…

He shook his head; it was nonsense. There
was no terrisdan here to speak to him. This place was neutral,
powerless.

Brenol feared he would never find sleep but
barely closed his eyes and was unconscious. His dreams were dark,
and the nuresti collector—with the face of Crayton—pursued him on
land and through tunnel, finally wrapping his wretched fingers
around him in a throttle.

Brenol woke with a sharp inhale, and his
eyes flew open to find Ordah shuffling gingerly back into camp. He
held up a small, glowing piece of cloth. It offered barely any
light but was enough illumination to direct his movements. The
prophet wrapped himself in his blanket and sat staring into the
sparkling sky.

“He never knew how to let go,” Ordah said
softly.

Brenol raised his eyebrows.

“My mother tried everything,” Ordah
continued. His voice was hushed and low, like the purr of a great
cat. “But when Jerem got his mind focused on something he wanted?
He became unstable. All else fell away. The world could collapse
and he’d never notice so long as he got what he wanted.”

Brenol raised himself to a sit and stared at
the prophet. He had never heard the man speak so calmly, let alone
reveal anything private.

“And my parents… They all but stripped
Jerem’s hide bare when he failed. Then they drowned him in gifts
when he did well. So he got better at concealing… I hated Jerem for
how much they attended him…”

Silence drenched the shelter, and the stars
beamed down softly. Brenol, though sitting, was drifting back to
sleep when Ordah resumed. “They made me promise I would help
him.”

“What did they want you to do?”

“Ridiculous oath for a child,” he said as
though not hearing. “I left to train when I was eleven. When I
returned…”

Brenol stared and waited, breathing slowly
and listening to the night. Finally, he asked, “What happened when
you came back?”

“He had killed them.”

Brenol nearly choked. “What?”

Ordah’s voice was even and unflinching.
“They died in a fire. But I’d seen it in my visions. I’d thought it
was an ache for home and family. Me trying to figure out my intuit
as a student… But I know what he did.”

“What did you do?”

Ordah chewed the silence and its judgment.
“Nothing,” he whispered after some time. “I was but a child.”

“Could you have done something?”

Ordah did not answer. There was no answer
that could remedy such guilt.

A nurest must continually work to perceive the
ordinary;

his vision is engrossed in the exceptional.

-Genesifin

The sun broke slowly past the water and set
the sky alight. The black sand still retained its coolness from the
night, and Brenol wiggled his toes deep into the dark smoothness.
From their standpoint on the shore, the life of the island seemed
fertile and green and luxurious. It really did look like paradise
here.

Oh,
thought Brenol. It was as if the
peace of the morning had shaken out the nagging element that had
rattled around inside him all night. His gut turned to cold
stone.

“Darse?”

“Yeah?” The man stood from his bent crouch.
He fluidly wiped black sand from one hand while maintaining the
hold of his shirt-made bowl with the other. Mussels clacked
together against his chest with the movement. Their shells were a
smattering of slates and dark grays.

“This whole thing is as simple as his
house.”

Ordah cocked his head at the words and
straightened his frame. His sharp eyes narrowed. “What do you
mean?” he asked.

Darse’s face tightened, and a shower of
shells fell to the wet sand. He let out a breath with a nearly
inaudible
oh.
“You think he’s underground?”

Brenol nodded. “The house, this island—they
both seem so perfect on the outside. Hiding what’s really going on.
And Jerem,” Brenol cast a glance to Ordah, “wouldn’t do anything
where the maralane would see him. If we know for sure he is here,
he has got to be underneath us somewhere.”